Miss Margaretta B. Moore, Elocutionist and ActressSource: The Aldine, Vol. 7, No. 13 (Jan., 1875), p. 259Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20636939 .

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THE ALDI NE. *59

remarkable genius, and through his influence with the angry doc

tor, he was allowed to pursue the study of music unrestrained.

Zackau, the cathedral organist, became his instructor. So great was the industry and eagerness of the young pupil, that in another

year he was able to write a motet or cantata weekly, and for three

succeeding years he varied these exercises each week with fugues on given subjects, sonatas, etc. At.eleven years of age, he had

outstripped his excellent and conscientious old master, who told him he was unable to teach him anything more, and advised him to go to Berlin. Here he met the famous musicians of that day,

Attilio and Bononcini, and excelled them both. He was accepted as a prodigy, and came near falling into the hands of the Elector, who wanted to assume his further education, and attach him irrev

ocably to his court. The prudent father foresaw a better fortune for his son, and withdrew him to his own home. At Berlin, he had found himself the superior of two of the most famous composers of i

the day. This would have sat- -

isfied the average modern ge nius, but it only served to in

spire in Handel still greater ambition and energy. He la bored with increased zeal. He

sought out the compositions of the men who were before him; he studied their characteristics,

pointed out their defects, re

arranged them, and by every means sought to enlarge his ideas and bring them as nearly as possible to his high ideal of musical perfection.

But we can not now trace the career in detail of this wonder ful man, wonderful not more for his musical genius than for the unabated zeal with which he

pursued his work, until blind ness came upon him and he was compelled, not to stop, but to abate his labors. In reading his life, we find but a single in stance in which his courage failed him; in 1703, he went to Lubec to compete for the posi tion of organist. The old mu sician whose retirement created the vacancy, had a daughter (description not recorded), and it was a necessary condition that the new incumbent should

marry her. Handel objected to the condition, withdrew his ap plication, and remained single ever after.

No better evidence of the in

dustry of Handel could be pre sented than a list of his com

positions. He was one of the most rapid and voluminous

producers ever known. Bach, who lived at the same time,

though he composed in a dif ferent school, wrote more than

Handel, but he had far more leisure from other essential du ties. The long and bitter con

test, in London, of the rival

opera factions, engrossed much of Handel's time, and he had not only to write opera after

opera, but to superintend their

preparation and production. It is fortunate for the world that in this factional fight Handel

was worsted, and left London for Ireland, to repair his brok en fortunes. From this time forth he abandoned the oper atic field, and devoted himself almost entirely to the produc tion of his oratorios already

written, and the composition of new ones. In this music the

ripeness of his genius is espe cially manifest. Over twenty oratorios are his, of which either the "Messiah," "Sam

son," or "Judas Maccabseus "

would have established his fam<?. His onpras were about

forty-four in number, and besides he composed and published nearly thirty volumes of miscellaneous music.

The excessive use of his eyes caused the blindness which we have mentioned. Bach was afflicted in like manner, and from the same cause. Handel, however, did not rest from all his labors.

At the age of seventy, and when he was totally blind, he played concertos and voluntaries in public, and also composed with mar velous excellence and vigor. His biographers speak of this period of his life with affecting fervor, though to see him led to the organ and from thence to the stage to bow his acknowledgment of the

hearty applause with which he was always greeted, was most pain ful to those who knew him in the full possession of every faculty. He attended an oratorio performance only one week before his death, thus continuing his arduous labors to the close of his life. Such genius coupled with such industry is rare, but the genius would have gone for naught had it not been directed, encouraged and sustained through constant vicissitudes, and made immortal

by an indomitable will and perseverance. Father Haydn, with whose name that of Handel is usually asso

ciated, was assiduous to the last degree in the acquirement of his

profession and its constant development. He was born in 1732, and at a very early age exhibited marked talent. One biographer says his father was a coachmaker and parish clerk, and another that he was a wheelwright and parish sexton. Both agree that his

mother was a cook at the chateau of Count Harrach, in Rohran, near Vienna, where Francis Joseph was born. The father's good tenor voice and a little knowledge of the harp enabled him to call into action the musical powers of the boy, which developed to such a degree as to attract the attention of a cousin, who begged the

privilege of taking the little fellow away with him to Haimburg to be educated. Reuter, chapel-master at St. Stephen's Cathedral, who was on the search for choir boys, came upon Haydn and im

mediately secured him as a most valuable prize. In his new home he practiced from sixteen to eighteen hours every day. At thir teen he attempted to compose a mass, a crude composition, as we

learn, for he had not yet had the necessary instruction in the con

struction.of harmony. When his voice began to change and he

refused to have it perpetuated by artificial means, Reuter turned him adrift. Keller, the barber, offered the homeless wanderer a

home. A worm-eaten harpsichord and a garret were the portion of this genius for a time, and for these enjoyments he dressed

wigs and allowed the barber and his wife to engage him to one of their daughters

? a union which was productive in after life of

great unhappiness. Through many years he struggled with pov

erty, never yielding for a moment his passionate desire to know more of music, nor relaxing his efforts to that end, It is said of him that in the space of fifty years he composed no less than five hundred and twenty-seven instrumental compositions "without ever copying himself unless intentionally." He himself said that

his greatest happiness was study. His compositions cost him much labor and careful painstaking. He was prolific in ideas, but not satisfied with his own work, spending much time in revision.

An oratorio, "Tobie," composed in 1774, which is of ordinary merit, preceded the " Creation," which was commenced in 1795. He was then sixty-three years old, and he was sixty-five when it was completed. When urged to hasten his work, his reply was,

" I am long about it, for I wish it to last long." With the " Four Seasons

" ended his musical career. He died at seventy-seven, his

long life having been one of untiring industry. In early life, as we have stated, he worked daily from sixteen to eighteen hours, and in his declining years never less than five hours.

If we have given sufficient to impress the young musician with the truth that something more than genius is essential to success, then we are content. All may rest assured that genius without labor is a useless possession. Better far is mediocre talent with zealous application and ambitious, aspiration.

MISS MARGARETTA B. MOORE, ELOCUTIONIST AND ACTRESS.

This lady, of whom we give a life-like portrait, has already made, for her comparatively early years, an enviable name at the reading

desk, and has within her those

capabilities which will not only win her a much higher name in that branch of her profession, but which ^will undoubtedly raise her, aKan early day, to a

high rank inPthat even more arduous branch, the stage. .

Only some four years have as

yet elapsed since her first ap pearance as a reader; and her

years, even now, can not be much beyond twenty if they have even reached that figure. She has a most vivacious man

ner, combining with a fine face and graceful figure, apparently petite and yet fully up to the

average standard, to give her a

desk-presence, or, alternately, a stage-presence, winning upon the eye as her modulations win

upon the ear. Most of her ap pearances have been made in the Eastern cities, though some of them have been at the West; and in all, to judge from the

very favorable comments of the

press, her reception has been most flattering. Her repertoire, at the desk, embraces some of the best selections from Shak

speare, Dickens, Macaulay, Hood, Scott, Tennyson, Long fellow, and many of the minor

poets; and with her really won derful memory, it may be in deed said to embrace the whole

range of the modern classics, as / her immediate mastery of a whole poem, a scene, or a suc cession of scenes, is among her rarest qualities. Personally, we know of few treats combining amusement with intellectual en

joyment, more thoroughly than her recitation of the whole of

Macaulay's "Horatius," Hood's

"Bridge of Sighs," or one of the notable passages from the

Master-Bard, without book, note, or any aid whatever to the memory, and all the while

with that abandon of feeling only looked for upon the stage. And this leads us to the remark which gives point to this brief

notice, and without the inten tion of which it would not prob ably have been written. What ever she may be as an elocu tionist and dramatic reader, it is very evident to the close ob server that her best celebrity will eventually be won on the

stage. She is a natural actress ? the one requirement, after

all, without which the dramatic career must be all up-hill work, even if failure is not a foregone conclusion. In this lady, every

. word and thought have their

appropriate motion and ges ture: and we know of no

stronger proof that her true vocation is the dramatic, especially at

this day when, in America particularly, and to some extent

throughout the English-speaking world, the passing away from

the stage of our best representatives of female character, and the

rare discovery of any worthy and promising aspirant, leave reason

to fear that we shall ere long know a sad deficiency in that detail.

Probably Miss Moore does not herself know the fact, but she has

the vivacity and playful power, blended with true earnestness, to

make a Rosalind, a Beatrice, a Constance, a Julia, or any other of

the sister heroines of the classic or the modern stage, not involv

ing too deeply the tragic element. Even the latter may be dis

covered and developed by her: ndbne can say at present. But we

hazard nothing in repeating that while she has before her, if she

chooses to pursue it and it only, an enviable career as a reader, she

is capable of a much more triumphant

one as an actress, and in

that point of view owes it to herself and the world to enter that

field where both can be best and most lastingly served. We all

rest under obligations, which some of us fail ever to recognize, to

give to humanity the very best capacities that lie within us; and

reminders of the fact can not be repeated too often or too forcibly.

U

MISS MARGARETTA B. MOORE. .

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